Well, Covid definitely meant some drastic action had to be taken, but when the UK government originally discussed suspending high school 'finals' for all studen

Well, Covid definitely meant some drastic action had to be taken, but when the UK government originally discussed suspending high school 'finals' for all students, they strongly suggested the derived grades would be based on mock exams, and teachers predictions / appraisals. Which would have at least localised the appeal system. Then any regulatory board could have worked 'backwards', so to speak... Only look at schools where there are blatant discrepancies across aggregated results. There was never any mention of the application of an opaque post-process. You would think that would be the kind of detail you would have to discuss in a national assembly before the state commissions it's implementation, but clearly, it was never raised. So while I understand your point (accusations of 'classism' are premature), I think the fact that we're only learning the details of this system now, is an outrageous abuse of trust and technology.